David Frum’s book assessing the conservatism of the early-to-middle 1990s was called Dead Right. If Gary Legum of Salon wrote a book about today’s conservatives, he might call it Undead Right. “The GOP is a zombie party, shambling across the countryside, spreading terror and devouring any living creature it comes across,” declared Legum last Friday. “But unlike in, say…a George Romero movie, you can’t kill it forever by planting an ax in its head…And unfortunately, because the GOP zombie cannot be killed, we are going to be stuck working our lives around it for the indefinite future.”
Legum alleged that the current Republican party is “not much more than a bunch of mailing lists and a scream reflex every time it hears the name ‘Clinton.’” Nonetheless, after the election the GOP “is still going to hold a significant amount of power…And what is it telling the voters it will use all that power for? Nonstop investigations of the Clinton administration; refusing to vote on a new Supreme Court justice to replace Antonin Scalia; probably some Obamacare repeal votes and new efforts to suppress the vote for minorities who overwhelmingly support Democrats.”
For Republicans, wrote Legum, it’s all about destruction:
What the GOP will not be doing is anything resembling governing. Like the zombie herds that are forever chasing humans across the landscape of “The Walking Dead,” it will amble along in a brainless rage, mindlessly attacking and attempting to devour any living creature that crosses its path. It will have no purpose beyond that. Any member of the party who has not become fully zombified will be chased down, bitten and reborn as a sentient corpse, wandering the land looking for a member of the Clinton administration to subpoena.
